


just our hands clasped so tight

by kirigiiri



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: F/M, HAPPY BDAY KYOKO KIRIGIRI, byakuya and hiro are there for like two whole seconds but...yknow, it's my bday too...glad i share it with a legend, light of my life, same for ryota
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 13:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20930732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirigiiri/pseuds/kirigiiri
Summary: (waiting for the hint of a spark)Kyoko regrets it immediately, letting go of him. She will not let go again.





	just our hands clasped so tight

It should have been easy, turning her back on him.

She knew that the mastermind was watching her. It was an obvious conclusion to come to, both for her and for the puppetmaster running the game. She was a threat, after all. There were others with formidable smarts, others who could easily discern the intricacies of a class trial, but no one else had put into jeopardy all that had been built up here. The killing game as a _ whole _ . They had pieced together trials, had solved the mysteries surrounding the murders of their own classmates, but no other student of Hope’s Peak had threatened the game so directly. No one else had pushed and prodded and poked at all the vulnerable bits of it, this _ scheme _.

No one else had as little to lose as she did.

She hadn’t thought of herself as above the others for her direct confrontation of what was lying beneath the surface of all the bloodied bodies meant to distract them, but she was aware that she was inherently _ different _ , somehow, even if her memories would not yet let her recall it. Perhaps that was _ why _ she differed, perhaps it was why she _ could _ face what was lingering in the depths. Kyoko had nothing to remember, and so she had nothing to return to. The outside world was less intriguing to her than the knowledge that she had a purpose _ here _ . Not a destiny, no, not a preset path, but a _ duty _, an intent.

Playing detective in a murder case or two had been a simple enough start, but when the bodies had continued piling up and the killings had gone on without pause, Kyoko had known that there was more to dismantle than singular cases fueled onward by Monokuma’s motives. The motives and the deaths were all so blatantly flashy, shining as brightly as neon signs on a darkened city street. There was more waiting for her, though, just out of reach, and she was willing to stretch out her hand to grasp at it.

With her hand outstretched and willing, she had investigated. It came naturally to her, despite all the restrictions that deemed her entry to certain locations _ forbidden _, despite the self imposed rule meant to keep her tucked away safely in her room during the nighttime. Breaking the boundaries that were set up to impede her progress was simple, something that she did without thought. 

It only registered as wrong — _ dangerous _ — when Makoto had fretted over her, his brows knit together and his gaze conveying genuine _ fear _so openly that it made her stomach twist.

She knew she was taking risks, of course. She was no fool. She knew that the confines of Hope’s Peak contained hazards, but it hadn’t mattered to her, not when she was in pursuit of answers. It had occurred to her that her actions were bold, that they perhaps put her in the line of fire, but Kyoko had not paused to consider that the threat to her safety was more _significant _than uncovering what she wanted until Makoto had taken her hand — gloved, guarded — into his own and squeezed it tightly. She had felt warmth seeping from his skin through the leather of her glove when he had made her promise to be careful, and she had agreed, however reluctantly, that she would take better care of herself. 

The memory of that warmth had come to her when the fifth trial had come to a close. His eyes had met hers again, his mouth shut stubbornly in a hard line even as he faced his demise —

Why had he not _ said _ anything? Why had she let him stay _ quiet _?

— and the memory of the sensation had made it feel as though her palm was now burning underneath the leather of her glove as she watched the conveyor belt carry him away.

It should have been easy, but it hadn’t been. 

He had trusted her, she realized, as the low thump, thump, _ thump _grew ever closer. He had trusted her when trust was the one thing that no one trapped in this prison of a school could bring themselves to offer up. He had trusted her —

_ Thump, thump, thump. _

— and that trust had chained him to a desk and sent him to his death. 

There had been an unpleasant tightness in her chest when she’d stepped forward into this trial. In all the ones that had preceded it, Kyoko had never felt concern. She had never been weighed down by anything like fear, apprehension, or guilt. There had been sorrow, sometimes, and a desire to bring clarity to the unfortunate realities of victims who had died too soon, but she had never felt any of it _ physically _. 

When Makoto had shuffled closer to her in the compact space of the elevator, the tightness had spiked, curling inside of her like tendrils, and she had done everything she could to avoid looking at him directly.

She couldn’t keep her eyes off of him when he had been taken away, chained up and trapped. He hadn’t even _ struggled _, Kyoko thought as her eyes bored into him, watching him more intently than she ever had before. 

_ Thump, thump, thump. _

She wanted him to struggle. She wanted him to fight. She wanted him to get up out of that chair and desk and make his way right back to the podium that he always stood at and announce that _ actually _ , he wasn’t finished yet. Kyoko wanted him to prove Monokuma wrong, to prove them all wrong, to turn each _ guilty _ vote on its head. She wanted him to look at her from across the class trial room in that way of his that had turned almost expectant now, as if he knew she would always be there to guide him. She wanted to see the light that sparked in his eyes each time a realization dawned on him, wanted to hear the uncertainty in his voice fall away as he proclaimed, _ no, that’s wrong. _

Because it _ was _ wrong. He wasn’t guilty. She wasn’t guilty. Not a single participant of the killing game was guilty in this trial aside from the mastermind, and Kyoko had let them _ cheat _. They had twisted this all into something unrecognizable, and she had simply stepped aside and let them make a sacrifice out of the boy so willing to trust her that he was going to die keeping her secrets.

_ Thump, thump, thump. _

When his last moments arrive, Kyoko looks away. She feels horrible for it, for sparing herself from the horror that Makoto has no choice of escaping, and for the first time in the killing game, she genuinely wishes that her life was taken instead.

_ Thump, thump _, a pause. Then, a gasp. 

Kyoko looks up for the source of it instinctively, coming to the sight of Hina standing shock still with a hand covering her mouth. She’s crying, Kyoko notices, and the guilt that bubbles up inside of her makes her strong enough to glance in the direction of where what is left of Makoto will be. Except. 

She sees him fall, chair tilting back and disappearing into thin air. She sees the wash of green light that has overtaken the trial room. She sees the projected image of Chihiro occupying every screen and sees Monokuma, stunned, lean toward where Makoto had just vanished.

When they are escorted out of the trial room in a rush, forcibly sent back to their dorms by a frantic Monokuma, Kyoko allows three words to tumble from her mouth, falling out in a panicked rush.

_ Is he alive? _

She doesn’t dwell on the way she must sound, must _ look _, on the glimpse she catches of Byakuya lifting his brows at her from the corner of her field of vision. 

The only thing that matters to her is the look in Hina’s eyes and the tentative _ hope _that sparkles there.

* * *

She has never believed in destiny or in matters of fate, but when Kyoko’s gaze drops to read the forbidden action rolling across the pixelated display of her bracelet, her beliefs momentarily waver.

The logical part of her understands that it’s simply a cruel trick being played on her by whoever is behind the scenes of _ this _ plan. It is an immediate dilemma, a personal one, and for a moment her logic falls away as she wonders if Junko has somehow found a way to return _ again _ to torment them, to remind her of her most drastic mistake. She understands quickly that this is not the case, that it is hardly difficult for even a stranger to make the assumption that she and Makoto are close, that anyone who has been observing them will have made the connection that has tied her to such an action.

When her paranoia melts away, Kyoko’s mind wanders to more plausible but still painful possibilities. Does Makoto’s bracelet mirror hers? The mere thought of it is enough to grip her with fear, and though it is the worst idea she could possibly have, she nearly outright asks him to extend his hand and show her his wrist.

But she can’t. If she does, he’ll want to see hers in exchange. She’ll have no reason to deny him, at least not when they’re alone, away from the crowd of Future Foundation members. No reason except for the fact that she knows, instinctively, what will happen if she reveals her forbidden action to Makoto. He might ask to see hers _ anyway _, even without her prompting, because…Because he trusts her.

Knowing that he does makes what she is aware that she must do infinitely more difficult.

She doesn’t want to leave his side, not for a single moment. Not when she still is unaware of what his forbidden action entails, not when hers places a limit on the remaining time that they have together. It dawns on her, then, what the bracelet on her wrist is truly meant to do to her.

It is a test, a test that reflects one she that she has been given before. She had failed it then. _ Her life over his _ . She had been fortunate, his luck had won out, they had escaped it _ together _ , but she still had failed. She had failed _ him _, and now, Kyoko has been given another chance. 

She puts as much distance between them as she can. She fights back the panic that flutters in her chest every time she thinks of him as alone — they have _ always _been together — until she is able to remind herself that Hina is with him. She won’t underestimate the swimmer’s pure determination to keep him alive. After all, she had witnessed his almost death, too. She had stood beside Kyoko in that trial room, had wept for him, had squeezed him in her arms tightly enough to nearly suffocate him when he had returned and had wept once more, her tears staining the hood of his jacket.

Hina loves him, she knows, and she hopes that will be enough.

She uses all the time that she has to herself to investigate what she can. It reminds her, horribly and intentionally, she is sure, of how things had been at Hope’s Peak. How things had been before she had betrayed him, allowed his trust in her to go to waste, before she had sent him to his death. She doesn’t dwell often on the topic, not now, selfishly preferring to avoid thinking of it when she can, but in a place like this, Kyoko cannot stop her mind from drifting back to the past. Her heart is not in her investigation, she knows, because her heart is _ elsewhere _, no longer prioritizing the solving of mysteries as the only thing that matters.

Makoto had forgiven her immediately. She had thought that his immediate kindness toward her, hair ruffled and tangled with garbage, had come from the sheer relief of seeing anyone willing to save him, _ feed _ him, speak to him. It hadn’t been just that, of course. When he had gulped down the mediocre meal she’d provided, when she had murmured to him all that had come back to her, half-excuses and justifications and reasons, there had been _ understanding _in his eyes. 

It had made her love him almost as much as she hated herself. 

There had been self forgiveness, too, with time and to an extent. Kyoko was not the type to lament endlessly, and if there was one thing she could do for Makoto, it was to believe wholeheartedly in hope, to stride forward into the future while holding it close to her heart. 

She tries her best to do the same now, even with all the weight she carries on her shoulders. Silent, invisible, and unbelievably heavy. Hidden knowledge, Kyoko has come to understand, is a _ burden._

She hides it dutifully anyway, when she comes face to face with him once more. 

She knows by the time they meet up again what his forbidden action is. Running in the hallways. It almost makes her laugh. It _does _make her laugh, a _relieved _sound escaping from her lungs in an uncontrollable puff of breath. When Makoto tilts his head at her, she tells him that it has reminded her of Taka, and together the two of them share a genuine chuckle as Hina excitedly tugs Ryota over to where they sit and begins to recount stories of their long gone classmates. It has always made her feel better, Kyoko knows. She is sharing tales so that they never truly pass away.

She wonders, momentarily, as she settles against Makoto’s side, what sort of stories Hina will tell about her when she is gone.

Even Ryota listens quietly and attentively to Hina as she waves and gestures and tells all sorts of tales. The time left until the fourth limit is reached ticks down, and Kyoko knows that she should be afraid. She remembers, vaguely, a question she had been asked when she was young. Though she had always preferred to keep her focus on the facts of the cases she studied, there were inevitable questions that lent themselves to a more philosophical sort of approach to handling murders. 

_ If your exact time of death was predetermined, would you want to know it? _

Victims rarely knew what was coming for them, in most cases. They were not aware of their impending doom, and perhaps that made it better, more painless. There was less to fret over when you didn’t know you were going to die. Time didn’t tick away for those who had no idea they were being watched by a clock. 

Kyoko had said that she would want to know because she had wanted to know everything. Her thirst for knowledge had been limitless as a child; there had been nothing she _ didn’t _want to learn. Knowing everything made her prepared.

She doesn’t feel prepared now. She doesn’t even feel as if anything is approaching, though she knows in the back of her mind that death is merely waiting for her now. Kyoko _ knows _that she should be afraid, but instead of focusing on fear, she leans into Hina’s stories, listening to the rise and fall of her voice, paying attention to every word.

Hina’s voice always cracks a little when she mentions Sakura. Kyoko and Makoto have heard the shift in her voice a million times now, and neither of them has ever once said a thing. This time, though, when Hina’s voice inevitably falters, Makoto _ moves, _ the arm that Kyoko has been resting on shifting so that it is nearly wrapped around her, pressed against her back.

The thought of Makoto’s voice speaking her name and breaking in the same way that Hina’s does almost makes her want to confess.

But she can’t, she reminds herself, because he has already sacrificed himself for her sake. He would do it again readily and without hesitation if he _ knew, _ and that is why she can’t speak a word to him about the circling words on her bracelet. It is why, when she settles into his embrace, she is sure to make sure that her sleeve still falls down to cover her wrist, obscuring the band that rests there from his view.

Hina retires from storytelling eventually, beginning to scout the room they’ve holed up in for anything suitable to block the doorway with. It’s absurd, Kyoko thinks, how readily and cheerfully she does it, humming softly as she shoves a desk against the entryway. It’s absurd how quickly they have readjusted to this.

With Hina busy, Ryota certainly doesn’t linger long, giving her one last wayward glance before he sulks off to assist her in her stacking. She and Makoto aren’t alone, really, but they’re isolated, at the very least. She can’t be sure if being completely alone would make this easier, if words would fall more quickly from her lips, or if perhaps she would freeze and once again look away when faced with the way that Makoto _ looks _at her. 

So open, so unguarded, so understanding, as if he is aware of everything about herself that she has tried to bury. He _ does _know her, perhaps better than anyone else in the world ever has.

Still, he does not know what is coming.

When she removes her glove and places her hand atop his, she revels in the heat of his skin against hers so directly. The sensation is muted, of course, by the thick scars covering her palm, but that hardly matters, not when her gesture has drawn his attention, not when his eyes meet hers and his words fall away. He _ listens _to her, so attentive and eager that it makes her want to cry. Kyoko speaks past the lump in her throat to offer up what few words she can to him, and once she has finished, she immediately wants to apologize, terrified that she is, in this moment, failing him again. She can only hope that it will be enough.

Kyoko runs her thumb over the top of his hand and feels it shake. She remembers the way he had looked, facing off against his death. She cements the image of him then in her mind, fixes her eyes on the image of him in the present in front of her, and hopes that she can find the courage that Makoto had somewhere in between.

They are still holding hands when the fourth time limit arrives. Makoto glances her way and with a soft smile begins to relinquish his grasp of her hand. Kyoko grabs onto him tightly, stopping him in place, and his smile _ widens _ as he settles back in to her touch.

She has never stopped being selfish, she realizes, when the chime of the time limit rings in her ears and she feels the needle embedded in her bracelet sink into her wrist. Her fingers squeeze around his even when she knows that he will wake up to skin that is cold and lifeless and limp. She wishes that she could claim that she is simply repaying a debt. She wishes that she genuinely _ was;_ that she was now giving her life up in exchange for Makoto’s in the same way that he had so long ago. She wishes, but deep down, Kyoko knows that she has only discovered a new way of being selfish. 

She had let go of him then, but she holds desperately onto him now, her senses sinking away into darkness as the poison spreads. 

* * *

She puts aside her investigation and immediately begins searching for him. She scours each level of the school, opens every door, wracks her brain in the hopes of finding some sort of solution that makes sense. Her detective skills are not as sharp, not when her hands tremble each time she _ thinks _ she’s growing close, and the fact that she has been so thrown off by all of this throws her off _ further ._

It’s ironic that after all of her searching, the lead that she needs comes from Hiro. 

They’re sitting in the dining hall the day after Makoto’s so called execution, an obvious sort of tension lingering throughout the room. Kyoko hasn’t slept, but even running on fumes, she’s more awake than she’s ever been, she thinks. No one has done much talking, not even Hina, and that fact makes Kyoko crave nothing more than to escape from this routine, to flee from the social obligations that this room contains.

She had always done it for him, hadn’t she? She had disturbed her own important routines to come here each morning because she had known that he would want her to, that seeing that she was safe mattered to him, and that had been enough.

Hiro breaks the silence with some poorly timed joke, earning an immediate glare from Byakuya. Even _ he _has shown up today, though he hardly looks as though he wants to be here, either. The glare is enough to quiet Hiro momentarily, but he has always seemed to talk more when he gets nervous, and so soon enough he’s spewing out a stream of consciousness, rambling and leaning back in his chair so that it tilts. Kyoko doesn’t listen, not until she hears a name amidst all of his nonsense. 

_ Makoto _, he says, and then he’s right back to chattering away, but this time, Kyoko listens.

He mentions the garbage room, the chute that extends beneath the school, and within moments, she has dismissed herself from the table. 

She wants to make her way straight for the room, but she has the sense to at least fetch something from the kitchen before she goes. The sense, she thinks, or perhaps the _ hope _. 

He could still be dead, after a fall like that.

Kyoko tries her best to keep her mind away from worst case scenarios as she navigates the halls straight toward the garbage room. She has realized, somewhere in the back of her mind, that if a drop so steep _ had _managed to end Makoto, then she’s about to condemn herself to the same fate.

She doesn’t care. She simply opens the hatch, bag of food slung over one arm, and does what she must. She descends into hell for him just as he had for her.

Despite the heaps of garbage that lie at the end of the chute, the fall still _ hurts _ . She collides with the debris with a dull _ thump _that reminds her vaguely of the press at the end of the conveyor belt Makoto had been trapped on, and she prays that his landing had gone over more smoothly.

She’s struggling to free herself from the trash heap she’s landed among when she hears a voice, _ his _voice, and suddenly, she is blinking away tears. They have no chance to fall before she clears her eyes of them, but their presence is so telling.

As she stands from the garbage heap, rising on unsteady feet, Kyoko breathes out a joke, and finally, lifts her eyes to meet his. She’s nearly knocked over by what she finds there, by the way he’s staring at her in complete awe...but beneath that, she sees him _ leaning _towards her, one hand outstretched, and he might be in shock and his mind might be addled, but.

But he’s looking at her almost as if he had expected this, almost as if this whole time, he had believed that she would come to save him. 

She steps forward and takes his hand, holding onto it as she pulls her feet from the trash lying beneath them, and for a moment, the urge to tug him forward and into her arms is all that she can feel. She holds back, of course, and offers up the bag of food in place of a hug.

It’s as suitable of an apology as she’ll be able to manage right now, she thinks, as the feeling of tears once again begin to prick in the corner of her eyes. 

She watches him eat in silence, her gaze unmoving and fixed upon him. She takes in every movement, every gesture, every little noise that he makes that tells her that this is real, he is alive. She had come here without hesitation, with hope in her heart, but there had been a part of her still that had expected to find nothing but a body. Monokuma has never failed before, after all, and yet. Here sits Makoto, having defeated the beast.

...Well. Not entirely, she muses, lips twitching up into a smile when he looks over at her, catches her watching him, and then immediately flipping _ down _ when he mentions that, _ ah _, she has a little something on her head…

As she brushes the cup of noodles free from her hair, Kyoko thinks that although they have not yet unmasked the mastermind, although there are still secrets that remain hidden in this school, Makoto has just won the most important victory of them all. There is still more to do, more mysteries to be solved, and they _ will _be, but not by Kyoko alone. 

They will face it all together, and Kyoko vows to herself that she will never turn her back on Makoto again. 

* * *

When Kyoko wakes up, she is somewhere else.

The walls of the trap crafted for the members of the Future Foundation have melted away, revealing a wash of white. For the briefest of moments she wonders if these stark white surroundings are a part of some afterlife, and then she laughs to herself as she realizes that no, this is no heaven. She is in a hospital.

Sitting upright in bed is easy. Standing, however, is another matter entirely. She manages to get on her feet eventually and is halfway to the door, still dressed only in a hospital gown when the door swings open in front of her and she is greeted with the sight of her nurse.

Mikan frets over her immediately, and her escape plan is foiled as she is escorted right back to her bed. At first, she has half a mind to be _ angry _ , to protest, to force her way through the door...until she realizes that she isn't even sure that he's _ here _. Wherever here is.

She is debriefed by Mikan, a person that she recognizes surprisingly sharply despite never having truly known her. She had seen her long ago, when Makoto had rescued her along with the other remnants, when she had joined him in setting up the Neo-World Program, but those encounters had been brief. She wonders, silently, if she has perhaps been waking up in increments she doesn't remember _ before _ now, if this is not the first time Mikan has found her trying to escape.

She does not ask. She simply listens as the nurse explains, rattling off medical terms that Kyoko would perhaps recognize and understand if she had any care for them now. But this is not a mystery she cares to dwell on. Maybe someday she will be intrigued by how she managed to survive the poison that had coursed through her veins. Maybe someday she will remember the details so that she can recount the story. Right now, though, there is only one thing that matters to her.

_ Your friends got out, _ Mikan tells her, though Kyoko already knows. Makoto and Hina would not have been defeated by something that they had already endured. She doesn't need to know that they survived. She needs to know where they _ are _.

She is granted the information she so desperately craves, eventually, after Mikan has checked her over and reluctantly allowed her to dress in her own clothes. She makes her promise to take it easy, and Kyoko does not hesitate to nod in response, so desperate to be free. She only has vague instructions to guide her along, but she walks with sure footing as she marks her path toward her destination. There's the faint feeling of buzzing in her chest when she exits the hospital doors, and the closer she gets, the more the sensation intensifies.

Kyoko wonders if the buzzing is perhaps her heart trying to break free from her chest when she finally sees him, his back to her as he stares out across the water.

She doesn't even have to call out to him. Kyoko stands a few strides away, steady and silent, and merely _ thinks _his name. He turns, immediately, and within moments he is in her arms.

He sobs openly against her, pressing his head to her shoulder, her neck, his tears flowing freely. He makes no attempt to hide them as she had done with hers so long ago, and this time, she takes a page from his book. She does not suppress her urge to pull him close, to cling to him so tightly that he'll never slip from her grasp ever again. She realizes that she is crying, too, when Makoto pulls briefly back and his fingers glide lightly across her cheek to wipe away the tears that have fallen there. She doesn't feel ashamed, doesn't blink them away. She simply leans into his touch, and when he gives her perhaps the most brilliant smile she has ever seen, Kyoko falls in love with him all over again.

It doesn't take long for the sounds of sniffling to draw Hina out from a nearby tent. She takes one look at the two of them together and then practically _ flings _ herself forward, draping her arms over them and squeezing them so tightly that Kyoko can't breathe properly. She doesn't mind, though, and she shifts one arm so that it loops around Hina's back to hold her just as close as she holds Makoto.

_ Survivors two times over, _ she exhales, and the laughter that follows makes her feel as though everything is _ right _ in the world.   
  
  


And maybe it is, here in this moment, sandwiched in between the boy she loves and their closest friend. Maybe with the three of them walking together toward the water, Makoto and Hina on either side of her, supporting her with every step she takes, the pieces all finally fall into place.

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYOKO KIRIGIRI!! MWAH!!! ♡
> 
> title from i will follow you into the dark by death cab for cutie...cliche, i know, but it is absolutely a naegiri song.
> 
> i knew i wanted to write something kyoko centric in time for her birthday, but instead of opting for a birthday specific fic, i started thinking about some of what must have been kyoko's most emotional moments, and...the comparison of makoto dying for kyoko and kyoko dying for makoto always gets to me. really, i just adore their dynamic so much that not including makoto in a fic about kyoko would be criminal.
> 
> hina's in there a lot too because she is absolutely both of their best friends, you can't take this from me.
> 
> hopefully everything's easy to follow here! it goes back and forth between their dr1 days and the dr3 timeline.
> 
> thank you for reading! ♡


End file.
